From: Department of
Transportation [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday,
March 18, 2009 2:15 PM
DOT
32-09
Contact: Jill Zuckman, Tel.: (202) 366-4570
Wednesday,
March 18, 2009
HUD and DOT Partnership: Sustainable
Communities
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)
Secretary Ray LaHood today announced a new partnership to help American families
gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower
transportation costs. The average working American family spends nearly 60
percent of its budget on housing and transportation costs, making these two
areas the largest expenses for American families. Donovan and LaHood want to
seek ways to cut these costs by focusing their efforts on creating affordable,
sustainable communities.
The Secretaries discussed their plans for
sustainable communities today at a U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations
Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing hearing titled, “Livable Communities,
Transit Oriented Development, and incorporating Green Building Practices into
Federal Housing and Transportation.”
“One of my highest priorities
is to help promote more livable communities through sustainable surface
transportation programs,” said Secretary LaHood.
“This partnership
will help expand every American family’s choices for affordable housing and
transportation,” said Secretary Donovan. “HUD’s central mission – ensuring that
every American has access to decent, affordable housing – can be achieved only
in context of the housing, transportation, and energy costs and choices that
American families experience each day.”
DOT and HUD have created a
high-level interagency task force to better coordinate federal transportation
and housing investments and identify strategies to give American
families:
• More choices for affordable housing near employment
opportunities;
• More transportation options, to lower transportation
costs, shorten travel times, and improve the environment;
• The ability
to combine several errands into one trip through better coordination of
transportation and land uses; and
• Safe, livable, healthy
communities.
The HUD/DOT task force will:
• Enhance
integrated regional housing, transportation, and land use planning and
investment. The task force will set a goal to have every major metropolitan area
in the country conduct integrated housing, transportation, and land use planning
and investment in the next four years. To facilitate integrated planning, HUD
and DOT propose, through HUD’s proposed Sustainable Communities Initiative which
it will administer in consultation with DOT, to make planning grants available
to metropolitan areas, and create mechanisms to ensure those plans are carried
through to localities. DOT will encourage MPOs to conduct this integrated
planning as a part of their next long range transportation plan update and will
provide technical assistance on scenario planning, a tool for assessing future
growth alternatives that better coordinate land use and transportation
planning.
o This effort will help
metropolitan areas set a vision for growth and apply federal transportation,
housing and other investments in an integrated approach to support that vision.
HUD currently requires states, cities, and counties to prepare a five-year
Consolidated Plan estimating housing status and needs. Concurrently, DOT
requires States and metropolitan areas to develop Long Range Transportation
Plans and four-year Transportation Improvement Programs. Coordinating these
federally mandated planning efforts, including planning cycles, processes and
geographic coverage, will make more effective use of Federal housing and
transportation dollars.
• Redefine affordability and make it
transparent. The task force will develop Federal housing affordability measures
that include housing, and transportation costs and other costs that affect
location choices. Although transportation costs now approach or exceed housing
costs for many working families, Federal definitions of housing affordability
don’t recognize the strain of soaring transportation costs on homeowners and
renters who live in areas isolated from work opportunities and transportation
choices.
• The task force will redefine affordability to reflect
those interdependent costs. The task force will also continue to ensure that the
costs of living in certain geographic areas are transparent– using an online
tool that calculates the combined housing and transportation costs families face
when choosing a new home.
• Develop livability measures. The task
force will research, evaluate and recommend measures that indicate the
livability of communities, neighborhoods and metropolitan areas. These measures
could be adopted in subsequent integrated planning efforts to benchmark existing
conditions and identify progress toward achieving community visions. The task
force will develop incentives to encourage communities to implement, use and
publicize the measures.
• Harmonize HUD and DOT programs. HUD and
DOT will work together to identify opportunities to better coordinate their
programs and encourage location efficiency in housing and transportation
choices. HUD and DOT will also share information and review processes to
facilitate better-informed decisions and coordinate investments.
•
Undertake joint research, data collection and outreach. HUD and DOT will engage
in joint research, data collection, and outreach efforts with stakeholders, to
develop information platforms and analytic tools to track housing and
transportation options and expenditures, establish standardized and efficient
performance measures, and identify best practices. An interagency working group,
led by DOT, is currently developing performance metrics, research and data needs
to support an integrated regional planning framework. The working group was
established in June 2008 to identify opportunities to better align federal
programs and resources to reduce traffic congestion, increase transportation
mobility, improve air quality and realize other related environmental
benefits.